Bottling Day

Finally made it back into the winery to get some much needed bottling done. I had several wines bulk-aging that were bottle ready, and I needed to get them done to make room for some other batches I'm planning.

First off was a blackberry wine, and I think it was the best of the bunch. This off-dry fruit wine had an amazing deep ruby color and an excellent finish. It was a five gallon batch and after tasting it I wish it had been ten! The image below shows the blackberry side by side with the blueberry port, and you can easily see the much darker appearance of the blackberry by contrast. Very pleased with this one!

Next up was a blueberry port that has been 2.5 years in the making. I admit I didn't have very high hopes for this one at first, but this wine is a perfect example of how aging can impact a wine. During the past few years at various stages of the winemaking process I had tasted it and it just wasn't really a good wine. It was alcohol heavy (not unusual for a port-style wine) and just not well balanced. I tweaked it several times in the first 18 months and afterwards pretty much just left it alone for a year. That turned out to be a pretty decent strategy, as it has developed into a pretty tasty dessert wine. It is still very high gravity, around 20% ABV, and it is high on the sweetness side of the spectrum, but it is fairly well balanced and has good color. It will be nice as an after dinner drink. Overall I'm happy with the end result despite my earlier doubts.

I finished up with a couple one gallon batches, a pomegranate wine and a black cherry chocolate mead. The pomegranate was very tasty, the color of Dr Pepper and with a nice tart finish. I didn't sweeten it at all, so it is on the dry side, retaining some residual sugar but just enough to balance out the alcohol. This is another that I think could find it's way into a five gallon batch in the future or blended with another fruit (raspberries maybe?) just for fun. The black cherry chocolate was probably my least favorite of the bunch, it was a little thin so next time I will need to use more fruit in the fermentation, but it did have notes of chocolate on the front end and had a nice fruit finish. I think this one will be best served chilled.

So a productive weekend in the winery, with more to come. Have a good week!